Mitch Albom's Sportwriter's Take on Racial Equality

This column by Mitch Albom contains profound observations on racial equality that I had to excerpt and share here. Taken from the op/ed page of the Park City Daily News, Bowling Green KY, November 12, 2008:

“[F]rom the start of the presidential campaign, I’ve been less concerned with Barack Obama than some of my countrymen. There were many white voters who were hesitant about a black president. Some were painfully blunt. . . . Others, who didn’t want to appear so racist, embraced labels like ‘radical’ or ‘terrorist.’ But it stemmed from the same part of human nature: We distrust that which is different.
“Well, one thing you get accustomed to as a white sportswriter is ‘that which is different.’ You get accustomed talking to black Americans doing better than you financially, being better known, more widely respected. You get accustomed to black coaches making trades, black executives returning your phone calls – or not. The music you hear is often not your music. The slang in the locker room is often not your slang. In the case of Latino or Japanese players, it may not even be your language.
“But you know what? You do your job. Everyone else does his or her job. And pretty soon all that stuff fades to the background.
“I remember a scene in the football movie Brian’s Song, where Gale Sayers is called into the coach’s office. He is nervous. What has he done wrong? They tell him they are thinking of rooming him with a white man, Brian Piccolo. ‘That’s all?’ he says. ‘You had me worried. I thought this was something really.’ ‘This is something really,’ a coach says. At the time depicted – 1965 – it was something ‘really.’ But it isn’t anymore. And of the two attitudes, Sayers’ is the one to admire. The one that says ‘That’s it?’ The one that says this is only as big a deal as you choose to make it. . . .
“Look, nobody’s being Pollyannaish here. Racism did not die Tuesday. But the first step is dismantling prejudice is taking it out of the system. You room a black football player with a white one, you haven’t eliminated everyone who hates it. But you have eliminated the idea that they’re right."

Bad Karma and the PRC

The concept of karma: believe in it or not, it opens the mind to consider the consequence of intent. Act in bad faith, and something bad will follow. Sharon Stone expressed an open question about whether the People's Republic of China has just suffered bad karma's effects with the earthquake disaster of two weeks ago. Her voiced opinion has resulted in a real-world consequence with a Chinese cinaplex giant vowing to ban her movies from their screens.

"I'm not happy about the way the Chinese are treating the Tibetans because I don't think anyone should be unkind to anyone else," Stone stated in a Cannes Film Festival red-carpet interview with Hong Kong's Cable Entertainment News. "And then this earthquake and all this stuff happened, and then I thought, is that karma? When you're not nice that the bad things happen to you?"

To my mind, that's pretty pedestrian for a controversial statement. Folks are more up front -- okay, blunt -- in my neck of the woods. Still, Stone's "bad karma" statement pissed off the Chinese, particularly on the internet. Ng See-Yuen, founder of the UME Cineplex chain and the chairman of the Federation of Hong Kong Filmmakers, called Stone's comments "inappropriate," adding that actors should not bring personal politics to comments about a natural disaster that has left five million Chinese homeless. Ng vowed not to show Sharon Stone movies in UME theaters, which has cineplexes in China's biggest urban movie markets.

I tend to act as if karma exists, but I'm not sold on its literal existence. After all, there are sharks like Ameriquest, the company who has been among the worst predatory subprime mortgage lenders in the U. S. Its owner Roland E. Arnall avoided the repercussions of his company's deceptive business conduct by being appointed ambassador to the Netherlands by President George W. Bush, at about the same time that Ameriquest settled for $325 million over predatory loan practices.

On the other hand, Arnall resigned his ambassador's post in February due to his son's ill health; less than a month later, Arnall was dead of cancer himself. Maybe I was a bit hasty . . .

Food For Thought, Oil and Terror Edition

I just heard Sen. Jim Webb (D-Va.) on Letterman, while talking about the war on terror, Iraq, and related matters, say that the price of oil was $24 a barrel in 2002 when the justification for war in Iraq was being pushed by President Bush.

$24 a barrel. One year after the 9/11 attacks.

And look at it now. Over $100 a barrel higher as of this writing.

Yep, that sure worked out, didn't it. Diverting resources out of Afghanistan, which was safe harbor to those who attacked us, and into Iraq, which was uninvolved in 9/11, sure kept the "terror premium" of oil down. I don't see a Texan or Okie being elected president anytime soon.

Sudanese Sauce for the Political Goose

Here's a political story refreshingly without the reflexive knee-jerk opposition between sides. Cindy McCain, wife of Republican presidential candidate John McCain and heiress to a nine-figure beer distributor fortune, has sold some $2 million of investments related to Sudan. John McCain has called for international financial sanctions against the Sudanese leadership in light of the genocide in the Darfur region, and the Associated Press pointed out that mutual fund investments held by Cindy McCain included companies that do business with Sudan.

Cindy McCain has repeatedly stated she will not reveal her income tax records publicly, even if her husband is elected president. But give her points for transparency here, for when previously disclosed investments in American Funds Europacific Growth fund and American Funds Capital World Growth and Income fund proved to incorporate companies doing business with Sudan, Cindy McCain quickly sold her investment in both funds.

Since John McCain has publicly criticized China for its dealings with Sudan -- "There is only one reason China has opposed sanctions to pressure Sudan to stop the killing in Darfur: China needs Sudan's oil" -- having investments that are even indirectly connected with Sudan would appear highly hypocritical.

Lest anyone think this is political sinning on the right, four presidential candidates had to divest of Sudan-related holdings last year: Democrats Barack Obama and John Edwards and Republicans Sam Brownback and Rudy Giuliani. Brownback also wrote 44 governors to urge them to divest their employee pension funds from businesses linked to Sudan. Guess it all goes to show how difficult it can be to invest wealthy sums of money without inadvertently lining some tyrant's pockets.

So, it's nice to see a political story where figures from both major parties agree on the proper course of action. Maybe our political landscape isn't irreversibly toxic.

This And That News Items

Some end-of-month observations:

Today is the fifth anniversary of Bush's "Mission Accomplished" speech. White House press secretary Dana Perino acknowledged that the Administration has "paid a price" over that banner. Gee, ya think? Five years and 4,000+ U.S. military deaths after Bush announced "Major combat operations in Iraq have ended" beneath that "Mission Accomplished" banner . . . there's just no way to spin that into anything positive.

Tomorrow is the National Day of Prayer. Unfortunately, in nearby Bowling Green, a cult that calls itself a church will be coming to picket a fallen soldier. Yep, the Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kansas -- a group I have written about in this blog -- will protest outside the funeral of Sgt. Adam Kohlhaas who was killed in his third tour of duty. This fruitcake brigade led by "Rev." Fred Phelps uses signs such as "Thank God for IEDs" and "God Hates Fags" to show their stated belief that God is punishing America's supposed tolerance for homosexuality by killing American soldiers. Perhaps some folks should extend their prayers tomorrow for Phelps and his ilk, for they are about as close to Christian belief as the Taliban is to Islam.

Yesterday, Supreme Court Justice David Souter told a conference of judges that a visit he made to Gettysburg changed his view of difficult cases. Admitting he once wondered why he had to resolve a case, Souter said he found an answer after going with his law clerks and secretaries to the battlefield where the Civil War changed course. He mentioned a desperate bayonet charge by a commander at the end of the Union line which ultimately stopped a Confederate charge, observing "It seems a fair assessment that one of the pivots of American history was at that place, at that moment." About deciding difficult cases, Souter summed up, "I could not ever again, under any circumstance, say it is unfair that I have to do this."

And what in the hell do we make of the out-of-left-field emerging scandal with Roger Clemons and Mindy McCready? Rocket met Mindy when she was 15 and they had a 10-year relationship which included him sending bundles of money to her and (she says) giving her a different high hard one than he gave batters from the mound. Just when you think you've heard it all . . .

Whizz Kids in Washington

Your tax dollars at work . . . According to the New York Times, President Bush is persisting in his nomination of Steven Bradbury to head the Office of Legal Counsel at the Justice Department. Bradbury is so toxic on both sides of the aisle -- in a lower job at Justice, he signed off on two secret legal memos authorizing waterboarding at detention camps -- that he's already been rejected twice by the Senate. Yet Bush, who said in December that a president has to have "a sound set of principles from which [he] will not deviate," stubbornly clings to the Bradbury nomination.

The Democratic leadership in the Senate has responded by halting all controversial nominations until Bush drops Bradbury's. Even though this means, according to Politico.com, the Consumer Product Safety Commission, the Mine Safety and Health Review Commission, the Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board and the National Labor Relations Board do not have enough members to do their jobs; many federal judgeships are vacant; and the Council of Economic Advisers is in singular tense.

Bush has dug in his heels. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid kept the Senate in pro forma sessions over the holidays so Bush could not make Bradbury a recess appointment like he did with (now former) UN Ambassador Bolton.

How high on the tree can we pee, guys?

These Are the Impulses Which Must Be Fought

The following (in italics) is an excerpt from news stories about President Bush's March 8 radio address on why he vetoed a bill barring the CIA from waterboarding and other enhanced interrogation techniques:

Bush, who used his weekly radio address to announce the veto, said the program had helped stop plots against a Marine camp in Djibouti and the U.S. consulate in Karachi, Pakistan, and plans to fly passenger planes into a Los Angeles tower or London's Heathrow Airport and city buildings. "Were it not for this program, our intelligence community believes that al-Qaida and its allies would have succeeded in launching another attack against the American homeland," the president said.

"I cannot sign into law a bill that would prevent me, and future presidents, from authorizing the CIA to conduct a separate, lawful intelligence program, and from taking all lawful actions necessary to protect Americans from attack," Bush said in a statement.


This was my response which appeared as a letter to the editor in the Daily News, Bowling Green KY on March 21:

Even in our hyperpartisan political climate, only the most strident Bush supporters could not be sickened by the president's veto of a bill that would ban the CIA from using torture techniques such as waterboarding. In his March 8 radio address, Bush hid behind the term "lawful" to describe the CIA enhanced interrogation program and continued to claim the widely discredited plot to fly planes into a Los Angeles tower as one of the program's successes.

The presidency that pressured the CIA to produce intelligence findings that supported an invasion into Iraq cannot be trusted when its attorney general calls waterboarding legal, nor can its claims of foiled terrorist plots be taken at face value. Sen. Jay Rockefeller, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, has stated that he knows of no terrorist attack disrupted by the CIA's enhanced interrogation methods. He added, "I do know that coercive interrogations can lead detainees to provide false information in order to make the interrogation stop."

The Daily News endorsed waterboarding "in a time of war" on March 11, and syndicated columnist Jonah Goldberg characterized U. S. use of waterboarding as a few well-spent minutes. These are the impulses which must be fought. Even if the information obtained is factual, we forfeit our moral standing in the world by sub-human treatment of detainees and create more monsters than we may catch.

Shut Up and Sing?

I was sitting at the computer reading about President Bush calling for greater power in both wiretapping and reading e-mails while also watching the Dixie Chicks on Austin City Limits. I thought of how the Chicks were run over a few years ago for Natalie Maines' comment in London during the run-up to the Iraq invasion. So many in our society condemned them (a few made death threats against them) for expressing an opposition to the President's war in Iraq that most of us feel now, and yet the Chicks are still held in low regard by many who were once rabid fans.

I don't know to what extent this phenomenon is related to a desire among music fans to not hear "political" messages from artists at live performances. A similar thing happened to Linda Ronstadt when she expressed a favorable opinion of Michael Moore onstage and concertgoers walked out. That incident also happened during the height of public sentiment for the Iraq war, so that sentiment could be a factor. Yet the Dixie Chicks lost their spot on the popular music pedestal even after popular opinion turned strongly against the Iraq war.

Personally, I feel the Bush Administration has exceeded politics and conducted itself in a constitutionally dangerous manner, usurping power for the executive branch in the name of fighting terrorism. Having said that, I don't want to hear a political lecture every time I go see a concert - yet the Dixie Chicks have been steamrollered for one comment and not given the benefit of re-acceptance when the public changed its view.

Grisham on Political Manipulation

Former lawyer, former state legislator, and current mega-selling author John Grisham recently shared his opinion with the Associated Press of how the Democrats have been outmaneuvered by Republicans in elections. "I think what the Republicans have done in past elections is brilliant . . . they've convinced a lot of people to vote for them against their own economic self-interest, and they've done that by skillfully manipulating a handful of social issues, primarily abortion and gay rights and sometimes gun control," he said. "And the Republicans have used those to scare a lot of people into voting for Republican candidates. It's skillful manipulation."

Lest you think the hard-boiled legal/political author is full of hubris, Grisham also threw water on his own literary importance, stating "I'm not sure where that line goes between literature and popular fiction. I can assure you I don't take myself serious enough to think I'm writing literary fiction and stuff that's going to be remembered in 50 years. I'm not going to be here in 50 years; I don't care if I'm remembered or not. It's pure entertainment." He believes he's an entertainer, not a Faulkner or Joyce. But at $9 million earned last year, he's obviously compelling to contemporary readers.

Clicking Off the Next Year

What's in a number? Why should it matter that a new year is about to click into place on the calendar? Physically, nothing much will be different about January 1, 2008 than it was on December 31, 2007. The rising and setting of both sun and tide will work the same, and the air quality will not be measurably clearer or duller on either side of the man-made dividing line between years on the calendar.

Basically, what change there is from 2007 to 2008 is what we make it out to be, which is to say how we perceive the world, ourselves, our prospects. That will also affect what we do with the world around us according to what we perceive. Aside from the occasional reflexive shying away from things with the number 13, I have never been much on numerology. So it is my opinion that what the end of one number sequence and the start of the next brings is hope. The start of 2008 will bring hope to the minds of many -- that this is when one's life can become better, easier, wealthier, healthier, fill-in-your-desired-outcome-in-the-blank-er.

While I may throw cold water on numerology (and new year's resolutions, by the way), I do not disregard the value of new beginnings, fresh starts, the ritual hitting of the reset button. Sometimes the existence of the ritual is just the extra push we may need to shed inertia and undertake new effort.

So Happy New Year, everyone. Let's look forward, even if it's just for the hell of it, because it sure beats standing still.